


Drawing Together

by captainraz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, art as therapy, canon character death, dealing with grief, description of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainraz/pseuds/captainraz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ziyal approaches Kira about spending some time drawing together, it brings up unresolved issues from her past, the least of which is Kira's complete inability to do anything artistic. As Ziyal teaches her friend to draw, their sessions become the framework for dealing with their pasts, and a foundation for building new friendships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawing Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rattyjol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattyjol/gifts).



> This was inspired mostly by my own current attempts to learn how to draw, and all the lessons I've been doing were useful research.
> 
> Credit also goes to [AceofWands'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AceofWands/pseuds/AceofWands) story [Casting On](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2006925), which inspired me to scrap my first draft and start again. I ended up with a much better story because of it.
> 
> This story covers a time period from somewhere after Accession to sometime after Sacrifice of Angels.

There were many words that could be used to describe Kira Nerys, but artist wasn't one of them. It didn't matter what implement she was using, pencil, paintbrush or her own hands, she never could seem to make her fingers do what she wanted. She would have a perfect image in her head, but somewhere between her brain and her hands everything would go wrong. Here she was, the last in a long line of artists, and she could barely even finger paint.

 

Honestly, it was embarrassing.

 

Sometimes she would find herself feeling grateful for the Cardassian Occupation, because at least it had meant that she hadn't been forced into the artists life courtesy of her d'jarra. And then she would feel guilty for having that thought. It would have been worth keeping her d'jarra and living a miserable life if all those deaths could have been prevented.

 

In a way though, joining the resistance had been a blessing. It had meant that she hadn't been forced into attending art school until she came of age, or what was left of the art schools after nearly six decades of occupation. Her mother had been a talented artist, and Kira's father would have found a way to send her to school in his wife's memory, Cardassians be damned. Taban's dissapointment when his little girl had joined the fight for freedom hadn't just been because he had spent his life trying to keep her out of harm's way. It had also been because in joining the underground she was betraying the destiny handed down to her from the Prophets. He'd tried so hard to hide it behind his growing pride that his little girl was risking her life for her people's freedom; had tried to hide his disappointment in his only daughter, but it was there, and Nerys could always sense it. It had been one of their longest running feuds, his disagreement with the fact she had turned her back on her d'jarra so completely.

 

Though the d'jarra system had largely been abandoned by the time twelve year old Kira Nerys had first picked up a phaser, those of the older generation still clung to the order it had given. Kira Taban and his wife Meru hailed from a long line of artists, many of whom had been quite famous. Their children were also meant to be artists, and their children's children, all the way down to the end of days. That was the way things were supposed to be. That was their d'jarra.

 

But d'jarra or no d'jarra, nothing could change the simple fact that Kira Nerys was no artist. She couldn't draw, couldn't paint, couldn't sculpt. Her hands were far more suited to holding a knife or a phaser. Sometimes, when she was nearly insensible with exhaustion, she'd mused that maybe she was an artist after all; her canvas people's bodies, her brush a gun and her medium death. Mostly she just resigned herself to her fate, and got on with what she was good with; fighting and shooting, writing docking schedules and being angry. Those were the gifts the Prophets had given her, and she had learned to be content with that.

 

So when Tora Ziyal had presented her with a table full of art supplies and an irrepressible smile, it had taken all of her considerable self control not to run screaming from the room. Instead she simply stared at the dazzling array of paints, brushes, paper and pencils her young friend had gathered.

 

"Ziyal..." said Kira, completely at a loss as to what else to say.

 

"What's the matter Nerys? Don't you like it?"

 

Kira faltered. She wanted nothing more than to reassure Ziyal that she did indeed like her surprise, but that wasn't the truth. She hated this surprise so much it was a physical sensation. Bile rose hot in her throat and tears pricked behind her eyes. She barely even wanted to be in the same room as these things, these symbols of how, ultimately she was a disappointment to her family, to her entire clan. But Ziyal had looked so earnest when she'd told Kira of her surprise, and now she looked so very disappointed. Lying wasn't in her nature, but Kira wasn't about to tell her friend the truth. She couldn't hurt her like that. So she swallowed her pride and her principles.

 

"Of course I like it Ziyal," said Kira through the lump in her throat. "It's just..." she faltered, unable to think of anything she could say that wouldn't hurt the younger woman.

 

Fortunately Ziyal picked up the slack.

 

"You remember when we thought Akorem Laan was the Emissary? And he wanted everybody to go back to their d'jarras?" said Ziyal quickly, almost babbling. "I heard that you were going to resign your commission to go be a full time artist because your family were from the artist caste and I thought...  I thought, well since I've been lonely when I've been drawing lately, that maybe we might do some art together."

 

Kira couldn't help herself at that, she laughed, a little bark full of bitterness. Ziyal looked hurt, and Kira had to scrabble to undo the damage.

 

"No, Ziyal, I wasn't laughing at the idea of spending time with you. You know I love that. It's just, you must know I can't do this," she said gesturing helplessly at the table. "I'm useless at it. I haven't an artistic bone in my body."

 

"But your family...?"

 

"Were very disappointed to discover they'd produced an artistic dead end."

 

The smile fell from Ziyal's face as a complex mix of emotion passed over it. Kira recognised guilt, and that fueled her own feelings of blame for hurting the closest to a sister she had ever had.

 

"You can't draw? At all?" asked Ziyal morosely, as though trying to confirm the enormity of the mistake she had just made.

 

"Not even a little bit. Ziyal, at four years old I was the worst in my class at finger painting. Have you ever heard of a four year old who can't finger paint?"

 

Kira could remember clearly the laughter of the other children that day. Even the teacher had spoken of the Prophets being cruel to give a child of an Ih'Valla family absolutely no creativity whatsoever. She remembered crying on her father's lap when she got home that night and he had just been disappointed. She had been lucky to be given the opportunity to go to school at all, let alone one that had a focus on the arts. As far as Taban was concerned, she was squandering this opportunity they had been given. The next day she had refused to participate in the art class, sitting stoically at her desk while the other children had painted around her. The Cardassian overseer had dragged her in front of the class and given her a beating for disobeying orders. She had returned home covered in bruises that night, and every night after, but she had never participated in another art class, spending her time reading instead.

 

She shook the memories off and returned her attention to her friend, who was wearing a most peculiar expression. Kira wondered if she had missed something while she had been lost in thought.

 

"What?" she asked, embarrassed.

 

"I was just thinking," Ziyal said slowly. "I could teach you, if you like."

 

Kira smiled sadly. "Better men have tried and failed."

 

Ziyal gave her an admonishing look. "Will you at least let me try?"

 

Kira opened her mouth, intending to refuse, but thought better of it. Here was a young woman who had had a difficult life, possibly even more difficult than her own. A young woman who had spent her early years on Bajor where she had had to bear the burden of being Dukat's bastard, a "half breed". A young woman who had spent almost six years in a Breen prison camp, enduring heat and hard labour and beatings and Prophets only knew what else. Ziyal had endured all that and still managed to grow into a kind young woman who always believed the best of people. Who was cheerful and charming and compassionate despite the horrors she had known. Who was willing to spend her time on a hopeless cause like Nerys because she wanted to spend time doing something she loved with with someone she loved.

 

Tears welled up in her eyes. Ziyal was a better person than she was, of that she had no doubt. She who had been made strong and brittle by adversity felt laid low by Ziyal's gentle kindness, her belief that Kira could indeed get something out of this.

 

How could she refuse?

 

"All right Ziyal. But before you commit to anything you might regret, you should at least see what you're getting yourself into."

 

Ziyal smiled and nodded, delighted that she would get to spend this time with Kira after all. They picked an object, a raktajino mug, and sat down to draw it together. Kira forced herself not to look at Ziyal's picture and focus on her own piece of paper. She focused on the mug, pictured it in her mind's eye and tried to translate that to the paper in front of her. Try as she might she could not make her fingers go where she wanted. Could not create on the paper what she saw in her mind. When they were done Ziyal's drawing looked like a raktajino mug and Kira's looked like a lumpy mess.

 

"See, I told you I couldn't draw," said Kira, gesturing to the sad mess of graphite that was supposed to represent a physical object.

 

"The thing about art is that its not really about talent at all," said Ziyal, her voice stern but kind. "We pretend that it's something a person either can do or they can't when it reality its just another skill you have to practice. All you really need is the determination to keep going if something doesn't turn out quite like you imagined. And if there's one thing that you have in abundance, Nerys, its determination."

 

Ziyal smiled shyly as she finished her speech. Kira felt at a loss for words. How did Ziyal keep doing that? Turning what seemed like a hopeless situation into one where there was hope?

 

"So you think you can take this mess and help me turn it into a work of art? You still want to teach me?"

 

"I do," said Ziyal, beaming.

 

"Ok then," said Kira with a smile. "Let's get to it."

 

They sat down at the table and Ziyal went through the materials one by one, naming them, describing their purpose, until Kira's head was spinning. There were so many things to learn and digest that Kira was certain she would never get anywhere. Every time she thought about giving up, about storming out the door and never looking at anything remotely artistic ever again. Every time she considered it, she looked at her friend's earnest and understanding face and somehow kept her temper in check.

 

Ziyal had her experiment with all the things she had laid out, making random marks and pointless doodles, trying to find something she was comfortable with. Kira went through everything on the table and it all still felt foreign in her hands, so Ziyal suggested they start with the pencils. They would start with drawing and that would lead to painting which would lead to sculpture. Kira struggled to think about anything but the current session, but it warmed her heart to know that Ziyal had enough confidence in her to assume they would progress as far as sculpting.

 

"The first thing you really need to learn how to do is see like an artist. You need to learn how to take a three dimensional object or scene and translate it onto a two dimensional piece of paper while creating the illusion that it’s still three dimensional."

 

"And how do I do that?" asked Kira, overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible task Ziyal had laid out for her.

 

"Practice," said Ziyal with a smile, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

 

Kira resisted the urge to groan, but just barely. She was beyond relieved when she realised Ziyal wasn't going to let her loose to practice without equipping her with what she needed. Ziyal went through all the basic elements of art that appeared across all cultures in the Alpha Quadrant; line and shape and form and value, spaces and relationships, lights and shadow. She gave Kira several seemingly nonsensical exercises to complete that would help her "see like an artist". She didn't understand what would be accomplished by drawing an object without looking at the paper, or my drawing upside down or completing a drawing by sketching its mirror image, but she trusted her friend. She'd promised to give Ziyal a fair chance at teaching her this skill she had been lacking, so she did as she was told. She did her exercises; drew her picture upside down, drew without looking at the paper and sketched mirror images. She did it over and over and over again until she was so frustrated she wanted to scream. But the next week, when they met for her second lesson, Kira's raktajino mug looked a little less like a lumpy mess and a little more like an actual drawing.

 

She was astounded. Was it possible that Ziyal had been right? That being artistic wasn't something one was born with, a gift from the Prophets, but something that could be learned with enough practice and determination? Was it possible that Ziyal could turn that petulant four year old who had been laughed at by her peers into someone who could call herself an artist?

 

Ziyal laughed at Kira's surprise and was delighted by her progress. "I knew you could do it, Nerys. All it takes is a little determination."

 

"Maybe. I'll never be as good as you though," she said, trying to reign in her expectations to more manageable levels. Ziyal gave her a gentle nudge to chide her.

 

"I think you'll be better," said Ziyal, and there wasn't a trace of dishonesty in her voice.

 

Overwhelmed by the gratitude she felt for what Ziyal was trying to do, Kira pulled her friend into a tight embrace. She never wanted to let go of this wonderful beautiful woman who brought out the best in everyone around her. Who had been through such darkness but had emerged as a ray of light for other people to find their way out of the dark. The moment passed and Kira pulled away to find that Ziyal had tears in her eyes.

 

"Thank you, Nerys," she said quietly, her voice choked with emotion.

 

"What for?"

 

Ziyal shrugged. "For helping to rescue me from that prison camp. For convincing my father not to kill me. For giving me a home. For the hug. For letting me teach you to love something as much as I love it."

 

At a loss, Kira pulled Ziyal back into her arms. "Any time. Any time."

 

Once their emotions had subsided to a more manageable level they moved on with the focus of the days lesson. Together, they worked on arranging a series of random objects for a still life. Ziyal coached Kira through it, getting her to focus on sketching the objects as simple geometric shapes, focusing on the relationships between them before going back to add more detail. Kira found that she was less frustrated than the previous week and more able to focus on the task at hand. The urge to storm out wasn't quite as strong, and she even found herself relaxing and enjoying the session. Her bowl of fruit didn't quite look like a bowl of fruit, but Kira found she minded less. There was progress, and even if there hadn't been she'd gotten to spend a few hours with her friend which was a precious gift in and of itself.

 

Life intervened and they were forced to postpone their sessions for a few weeks. Kira found herself really missing her evenings drawing with Ziyal and looked forward to when life aboard the station calmed down enough to let them start up again. In the meantime she didn't waste what progress she had made. Whenever Kira found herself with a few minutes to spare, she drew whatever she could. She did the exercises Ziyal had given her whenever she got chance. She took a small sketch book with her wherever she went and practiced doing quick, rough sketches of whatever was close to hand. Her determination paid off because when they finally managed to fit in another session, Ziyal commented on Kira's obvious progress. Her raktajino mugs looked like raktajino mugs, and while there were still things she could be working on both Kira and her mentor were pleased with her burgeoning skills.

 

And then Ziyal started teaching her how to draw people.

 

Kira really struggled with people. She found drawing them almost as difficult as getting along with them without losing her temper over something. There were so many little details when it came to drawing people; fingernails and eyelashes and hair. Hands were hard. Faces were hard. It was all so very hard.

 

Learning to draw people Kira came the closest to quitting she had since the frustration of the very first session. But Ziyal calmed her down, soothed her through the frustration and got her to focus on finding the basic geometric shapes underneath the complexity, shapes she already knew how to draw. She got her to focus on individual components, drawing them over and over again until Nerys was sick of them. She drew pages and pages of eyes and hands and stick figures, slowly becoming comfortable with each of them in turn. After several more weeks of nail bitingly tense sessions, Kira could draw a person holding her raktajino mug.

 

Their sessions became more enjoyable after that. Ziyal felt she had given Kira all the basics skills she needed for now and it was up to her to keep practicing. They were finally at the point where they could relax as they drew something together, with Kira only occasionally asking Ziyal for advice on this or that. Kira opened up a little about her own history with art, about how disappointed her parents had been with her and how she had always felt that her hands were meant for other, less delicate things than creating works of art. Ziyal in return said very little about her past, instead focussing on what she was learning now, current trends in the art world and comparing artistic works across different cultures. Kira noticed that her opening up about her past went unreciprocated, and wondered why her friend was so reluctant to share her history with her.  She knew the conditions Ziyal had grown up in, had seen her dirty and disheveled and yet still strong. She wondered what Ziyal could be so ashamed of that she avoided talking about it with someone who had seen her at her lowest. As was the case with many things, Kira ended up asking outright.

 

"How did you learn to draw, Ziyal?" she asked one week after a short period of comfortable silence. "Did you teach yourself?"

 

The younger woman nodded. "I'd always loved to draw as a child, but artistic skills aren't very highly prized among Cardassian women. When I was younger I always wanted so very badly to be as Cardassian as I could. I thought that if I could just show father I could be the perfect Cardassian daughter then maybe he'd come and live with mama and me."

 

She sighed deeply, years of disappointment evident on her face. Kira reached out and touched her arm in reassurance. Ziyal gave a weak little smile before continuing.

 

"I didn't go back to drawing until after we'd crashed and were in the prison camp. I started drawing mostly as an escape. The hours were long, the labour hard and it was far too hot, even for a half-Cardassian. I'd pull pieces of charcoal out of the fire and draw escape scenarios on the tunnel walls. I'd pretend that mama was still alive and draw us in a house on Cardassia with father. I got good enough at it that other prisoners started making pieces of leather and asking me to draw pictures of their loved ones back home. I was completely self taught until you brought me to the station."

 

Kira took Ziyal's hand and gently squeezed it in reassurance. "You don't talk much about your time in the prison camp."

 

"What's to talk about?" said Ziyal in a poor attempt at nonchalance. "I thought I was going to die there. I'm glad to be proved wrong."

 

Kira recognised the reticence born of having seen too much and not knowing where to start. One of the reasons she'd never accepted the counselling sessions Starfleet offered all Bajoran militia personnel serving on DS9 was because she didn't even know how to start working through her issues. Where do you start when you killed for the first time when you were barely a teenager? How do even begin to talk about atrocities committed in the belief that this was the only way to obtain your freedom? Kira saw the exact same thing in Ziyal's eyes; the slightly haunted look that spoke volumes and the pleading not to ask about it, so she didn't push.

 

"You know if you ever want to talk about it I'm here. Night or day."

 

Ziyal looked infinitely grateful for that, and they parted ways after another lengthy embrace.

 

They took a short break when Kira ended up carrying the O'Briens’ son as she adjusted to her new situation. But both of them found they missed it, and they continued them right up to the day Kirayoshi was born. Kira found that, as much as she loved being a part of Keiko and Miles' family, it was nice to spend some time away from them, in her own quarters. The baby always seemed to be much calmer when Kira was drawing with Ziyal, which was more than okay with her. The only real difference her pregnancy made to their sessions was the intermittent sneezing.

 

Jake Sisko joined them for the first time not long after Kirayoshi was born. At first Kira felt resentful of his inclusion; she saw this as her private time with Ziyal and didn't particularly want to share. Besides, she felt awkward around the two of them. She was the eldest of the three, by a wide margin, and the station's first officer and a contemporary of both their father's. She was supposed to be the mature one, put together and capable, but around the two of them she felt awkward and out of place. They were both so artistic, in their own way, and she was still struggling to develop her creative side. But Jake didn't intrude all that much; he was content to sit and write, mostly just happy to be in the same room as other people who were creating something. And Nerys found she enjoyed the opportunity to get to know him as Jake, rather than just as Captain Sisko's son.

 

Ziyal, for her part, seemed to relish having a friend who was close to her own age. She'd spent most of her life with people who were much older than her, in dire situations and she seemed to find it refreshing to spend time with a teenager doing teenage things.  And she seemed to enjoy being with someone who had grown up without the horrors both she and Kira had known.

 

Kira enjoyed watching the interactions between the two youngsters, the way they would laugh and tease and bounce ideas off one another. They would take it in turns to come up with ridiculous ideas and challenge each other to write or draw a piece based on it, usually with hilarious results. Kira was happy to sit with her drawings while the other two had fun. By this point drawing had almost become a meditative practice for Kira, and she would often pull out her pencils to relax after a bad day. She had no problem tuning the two youngster out and focussing on her work if she needed to. She did enjoy watching them interact, and if she was honest with herself, sessions where Jake and Ziyal were being silly usually ended up being her least productive. Not that she minded; days like that the art came second to enjoying good company.

 

When she wasn't drawing whatever challenge Jake had set her this week, Ziyal would often do sketches of young Mr Sisko. He proved to be a decent model, often sitting still for hours at a time, concentrating on a PADD. Ziyal had something of a crush on Jake, Kira could tell by the way she drew him. There was always a certain romanticism to the way Ziyal drew Jake, and her sketchbook was full of pictures of him. Jake for his part seemed oblivious. Kira thought that perhaps Ziyal was too Cardassian and not quite Bajoran enough for his predilections. She thought it was a shame; the two of them would have made a lovely couple, and this was a much more sensible crush than the one she'd had on Garak. But Ziyal didn't seem to mind that her feelings were unrequited. She was just happy to have a friend who understood her creative urges. Sometimes Jake would drag Ziyal out with him and Nog, and Kira had no doubt that had Nog not joined Starfleet Academy the three of them would have caused no end of trouble.

 

It was Jake who convinced Ziyal to let them look through her sketchpads and portfolios. She had been reticent at first, but Jake was insatiable in his curiosity and she had finally relented. Most of her pieces were pencil sketches of people, places and objects, interspersed with beautiful monochrome minimalist paintings and the odd impressionist or surrealist pieces. She really was very good. Kira noticed that Ziyal only showed them some of her sketchbooks, one or two had conspicuously stayed on the shelf. Kira filed the knowledge away, intending to ask about it when she and Ziyal were alone.

 

"So," said Kira, one week when Jake couldn't make it, "is there any particular reason why you didn't show us all your sketchbooks the other week?"

 

Ziyal stiffened but didn't say anything. Kira continued.

 

"I mean you were pretty reluctant to show us any of your work, so I'm wondering what's in those books that meant you really didn't want Jake and I to see them. They're not full of nudes are they?" asked Kira with a grin, trying to lift the sombre mood that had come over her friend.

 

Ziyal rewarded her with a weak chuckle. "No, it's nothing like that. I guess I didn't really want Jake to see those pieces because I don't know if he would understand. But you would, you'd understand Nerys."

 

Without saying another word Ziyal collected the sketchbooks in question and handed them to Kira, who leafed through them with the reverence she felt was due. Most of Ziyal's work was light and airy and filled with the relentless kindness and optimism she lived in the rest of her life. Not so these drawings. These were all bleak and visceral and evoked a sense of hopelessness and impotence and rage. Most of the pieces were angry abstracts the colour of blood. Some of the scenes were of people, broken and bleeding and utterly without hope; of beatings and rape and torture and death and they were far far too realistic. Kira had to fight down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat. These pictures of Ziyal's were far too reminiscent of a thousand things she had seen during the Occupation. She knew why Ziyal hadn't wanted to show Jake these pictures. He had grown up in the relative safety of the Federation; he'd had his own share of hardships, true, but he hadn't had to grow up against a backdrop of starvation and forced labour under the threat of torture and death. Ziyal had. Kira had. In this sense they were two kindred spirits, and Kira understood perfectly.

 

Kira wanted to go to Ziyal, to wrap her up in her arms and never let go, never let anyone or anything hurt her ever again. She was too pure a soul to have these things on her consciousness. But Kira was paralysed by the bile in her throat and the tears in her eyes and the memories that assaulted her. So she sat silently staring at the drawing, fighting to slow her breathing and waiting for Ziyal to speak again. When at last she broke the silence, her voice was hoarse with emotion.

 

"I still have nightmares sometimes. I dream that I'm back in the camp, that you never came for me. I dream of every death I ever witnessed there, every beating, every rape. Sometimes I dream that my mother survived the crash, that she ended up in the camp with me. And I dream every possible horrible thing that could have happened to her. When I wake up, screaming and covered with sweat, drawing is the only thing that calms me down."

 

"How often are the nightmares?" asked Kira, tears running down her face.

 

"Not as often as they used to be. I haven't actually drawn anything new in those books for months, since we started drawing together. Do you still get nightmares, Nerys?"

 

Kira closed her eyes, fighting down the tears in her eyes and the panic in her chest. She could still hear the sounds of phaser fire and the screams of the dying, the stench of blood and scorched flesh. She could still taste the metallic tang in her mouth, could feel blood on her hands and she knew if she opened her eyes she would see it too. She could still feel the rage, the raw anger born of oppression untempered by five years of freedom. If she let her guard down for even a second it would burst out of her skin, eager to tear down everyone and everything around her. So she kept her temper on a tight rain and paid the price every time she closed her eyes when she relived every life she took, every life she had seen taken.

 

"Yes," she said finally, her voice quiet and cracked with emotion. "Yes, I still have nightmares. Sometimes two, three times a night, sometimes when I'm still awake. The horror is always there waiting for me when I close my eyes and sometimes I'm scared to sleep for fear of what I'll see." Tears flowed freely down her face as Nerys struggled to find the words. "In my dreams I don't see faceless Breen, I dream of faces like yours. I've spent my whole life hating Cardassians and I don't know how to stop. How do I stop hating, Ziyal? How do I stop?"

 

She broke down completely then, and Ziyal was the one who moved to wrap her arms around Nerys. They sat like that for a while, crying on each other's shoulders, drawings abandoned as they sobbed out their trauma, giving and taking comfort in equal measure. As the tears ebbed and they fought to catch their breath and calm their hearts, they looked at each other gratitude outshining the pain in both women's gazes. When the crying had died down to a few stilted hiccups, Kira spoke again.

 

"Do you think...?" Nerys began, before the thought petered out. She licked her parched lips and tried again. "Do you think that art could help me... process? I mean, I’ve never had any counselling, no matter how hard Starfleet pressured me... Do you think that drawing... I mean I've heard art can be therapeutic, and you said it calms you down after a nightmare. Do you think it could help me?"

 

"I think it’s worth a try," Ziyal said, a weak smile on her tear streaked face. "I mean the worst case scenario is you end up with extra drawing practice."

 

"No," Kira barked bitterly, "the worst case scenario is it makes things worse somehow."

 

Ziyal gave her a reprimanding look. "I don't think it will. Try it, let me know what happens. Get a new sketchbook specially for this, and you don't have to show anyone if you don't want to."

 

Kira got hold of her new sketchbook as soon as she was able after their session ended. For several nights the nightmares didn't come at all, for which she was profoundly grateful. But one evening after a very long day in Ops, when she was exhausted and emotionally drained anyway, she realised it was the anniversary of her father's death. She did her best to knock herself out with unreplicated springwine, but the dreams came anyway. She relived every moment of it, every last gasp of breath Taban had taken, the blood on her hands, her beloved father's blood. She remembered the fear on his face, the fevered words he had spoken as he lay dying, of her mother, her brothers, of how much he loved her. She felt again the guilt of not being there the moment the Prophets had come to take him to the Celestial Temple. She remembered digging her father's grave, but in her dreams, in her nightmare he was still alive as she buried him.

 

She woke up screaming, covered in sweat and with tears streaming down her face. For several moments she couldn't do anything but cry, great big sobs wracking her entire body. When she had calmed down enough to be able to move, she launched herself out of bed to grab her sketchbook. Kira very quickly discovered that sketching wasn't an adequate replacement for what she usually did after a nightmare; working, pacing her quarters or taking a shower so hot it nearly scalded her skin. When a nightmare woke her up she always had to fight the need to lash out, to shout and scream and hit something. Bad dreams made her restless, and she couldn't keep still long enough to draw something. So she got out her paints and a fresh canvas. At first she was at a loss as to what to paint, but then images from her nightmare came screaming back to her and she threw the pot of paint she was holding. It connected with a dull thud, and left intriguing marks on the canvas. She threw more paint, screaming out her emotions, glad that the bulkheads were soundproof. She didn't care what colour she picked, she just kept picking up paint and throwing it at the canvas, satisfying the itch she felt in her brain, the urge towards violence. When the canvas was full she pulled out a fresh one and kept going, channelling all her anger and hatred and guilt into the art she was creating. She pulled out canvas after canvas, replicating more, painting until she was satisfied. Hours later, when her emotions had all but run their course, she managed to paint a depiction of the wormhole, the Celestial Temple where her father's pagh now resided. She finished that piece just as the computer chimed to wake her up, and having completed it she finally felt calm enough to meditate.

 

The nightmares left her alone for days after that.

 

She reported back to Ziyal on the results of her little experiment, who was glad that Nerys had found something that helped. They said nothing to Jake about their experiences with art as therapy, and if he noticed the two women's newfound closeness he didn't say anything. The three of them continued their weekly sessions as normal.

 

Kira found herself painting in the middle of the night more and more as tension with Cardassia and the Dominion escalated. These pieces grew darker even as her weekly sessions with Jake and Ziyal became more and more scarce. War was inevitable. The Dominion was coming, she could feel it in her pagh, and the idea terrified her.

 

Sending Ziyal away was one of the hardest things Kira had ever done. She tried to tell herself that she'd had no choice, that it was to protect her, that she was going to Bajor where she would be safe, where she would be able to continue her art. Nerys tried to tell herself all of that, and it was all true, but that didn't make it any easier. She was sending Ziyal away from the only home she had ever known, away from the only friends she'd ever had and she hated herself for it. Perhaps it would have been easier if Ziyal had also hated her for it, but the poor girl didn't have a malicious bone in her body, despite all that had been done to her. Ziyal appreciated all the work Nerys had put in getting her a place at the university, told her she looked forward to her lessons even though their goodbye was more bitter than sweet. As Ziyal stepped through the airlock and into the unknown Kira wanted nothing more than to sit and cry for the rest of her life, but she couldn't. There was still work to do.

 

Life under Dominion Occupation was simultaneously easier and harder than Kira had anticipated. She detested the sight of Cardassian soldiers strutting down the Promenade, walking around her station like they owned the place. She loathed having to bow and scrape to Dukat's twisted and unpredictable ego. She far preferred dealing with Weyoun, but her fingers still itched to throw the little sycophant out an airlock.

 

She spent most of the first few weeks of occupation being angry at Jake for not leaving when she got the chance. He wanted to continue with their art sessions even though Ziyal was off the station, but Kira said no. Jake was in a precarious enough position as it was, the only Federation citizen left on the station, the son of the Emissary living behind enemy lines. She didn't want to make him any more of a target than he already was. She wished she could have foreseen his stubbornness and stuffed him in Ziyal's luggage before she'd left. Captain Sisko would have been less than pleased, but at least Jake would have been safe in neutral territory. Safe and with a friend.

 

Just because she refused to meet with Jake didn't mean she had given up on her art altogether. On the contrary, she was using it as a crutch to enable her to get through her day. She took out her frustration and impotent rage on the canvas, drew graphic and violent deaths for Dukat, Weyoun and Damar. Kira knew that if they ever took it upon themselves to search her room and found her drawings, she would be executed. Weyoun at least might hide behind simpering smiles and words of friendship, but this was now a military dictatorship and no dissent would be allowed, even behind closed doors. By day she grit her teeth and endured the treacherous triumvirate and by night she produced her seditious drawings. And even then they were barely keeping her temper in check. No matter what she did her emotions ran hot and angry, boiling just below the surface of her manufactured smile. Major Kira was a ticking time-bomb, just waiting to go off.

 

If dealing with Ziyal's departure from the station had been hard, it was nothing compared to how her return made Kira feel. Having been out of contact with her friend since she'd left, she was completely blind-sided by her arrival on DS9. She was a maelstrom of emotions; she was glad to see her again, of course she was, but she was also worried for her safety. Kira had sent her to Bajor for a good reason, and her father being the Dominion supported head of the Cardassian government was no guarantee of her security. In fact it was more likely to compromise her safety if someone decided to use her to manipulate Dukat. Kira wouldn't put it past Weyoun to use Ziyal as a means to an end. Not that her own father was above such behaviour. Kira was well aware that Dukat had only brought Ziyal back to the station to try to make her more susceptible to whatever sick fantasy the Cardassian had in mind. That knowledge soured their reunion somewhat.

 

For Ziyal's sake, because she'd missed her friend and she wanted to spend time with her, Kira agreed to dinner with her father. She should have known better, she should have known it would be a mistake.

 

She still remembered the planet wide transmission the day the Cardassians officially announced the withdrawal from Bajor. She remembered Dukat's slimy face, his simpering voice as he spoke of a new era, of hope for friendship between Bajor and Cardassia. Him, the Prefect of Bajor, who had overseen the brutal victimisation of her people, talking about peace and friendship before the blood had even dried. His crimes against Bajorans were incalculable and his transgressions against her personally were numerous. She had no idea what made her think she could bond with him, even over a subject as dear to her as Ziyal and her art. And yet, she found herself almost thinking of him as a person, as someone who was also doing their best to be family to Ziyal. It made her feel dirty, deep in her pagh. It was awkward, to say the least.

 

She was profoundly grateful to Ziyal for not mentioning the fact Kira had seen her work before. In fact both of them went to great lengths not to mention to Dukat that they had spent many hours creating art together. It felt private somehow, the time they'd spent together almost sacred. And they certainly didn't want to bring Jake into it; he was in a precarious enough position without Dukat finding out he'd spent hours beyond count with his daughter, often unsupervised. Kira could well imagine that Dukat would throw him out an airlock for that. So she pretended this was the first time she had seen Ziyal's artwork, and Ziyal pretended it was the first time she'd shown her. It wasn't hard to feign surprise and delight when Ziyal produced her pieces; her time on Bajor finally getting a formal artistic education had really paid off. Her work had improved in almost every way, and Kira was fiercely proud of her friend for that. Ziyal had once graciously made out that Kira could potentially be a better artist than she was. That flattery may well have had a grain of truth once, but not any more. There was no way Kira could ever hope to surpass Ziyal's talent now that it had been truly unlocked, and she found that she didn't really mind.

 

Ziyal's artistic achievements could only keep her distracted for so long. Her frustration and disgust with Dukat's behaviour toward her and her own acceptance of him won out in the end. The dress was the very last straw. She couldn't do it. She had spent most of her life in committing terrorist acts in active resistance against him and his government, and she was doing the same again. Kira couldn't afford to see Dukat in a sympathetic light, not when she was fighting a war against him, and she wouldn't allow him to use Ziyal to manipulate her any more. It wasn't fair on Ziyal. She knew she couldn't make Ziyal choose between her and her father, she knew there was no choice. So, for Ziyal's sake, for the sake of her pagh, she cut off contact with her young friend, even though it broke her heart to do so.

 

In the weeks that followed Kira missed Ziyal like she would an amputated limb. Her chest ached every time she thought of her friend, every time she remembered she'd essentially abandoned her to the power hungry narcissist she called father. Kira felt her absence all the more keenly after the female changeling came to the station, and Odo began to pull away from her. She felt like her friends and allies were dwindling by the day, but she refused to let her resolve slip. Keeping her distance from Ziyal felt even more crucial in light of Odo's defection. With him out of the loop, Jake was taking on ever more responsibilities in their little resistance cell. She hadn't been able to protect Jake, to keep him out of the fighting, but she swore to the Prophets she'd keep Ziyal out of it at all costs. From a purely practical point of view Ziyal would have been a liability to the cell because of her relationship with Dukat, but Kira wasn't thinking about the practical side of things. Kira desperately wanted to keep Ziyal out of this because she had seen the heartbreak of her face when she'd thought Kira was going to ask her to choose between her friend and her father. She couldn't do that to her again.

 

Rom's arrest changed everything.

 

With him behind bars their resistance movement was reduced to Kira, a teenage boy who thought it was all very heroic and an unreliable Ferengi bartender.  Leeta did what she could to take her husband's place, but she'd never been in the underground, she had no experience at this sort of thing. No one else in the group had Rom's engineering genius which they desperately needed to continue with their acts of sabotage. There was no other option; if they couldn't shut down the anti graviton beam then the Alpha Quadrant was lost. They had to get Rom out at all costs. Even if it meant Kira going back on her word.

 

It took Kira three attempts to fight down the guilt enough to approach Ziyal. She didn't want to get her involved in this, and she fervently wished Ziyal had stayed on Bajor where this wouldn't have been a problem. But Ziyal was here, on the station, and she was their last hope for getting Rom out of that holding cell without resorting to violence. So Kira swallowed her guilt and rage and all the other emotions roiling around inside her, promising herself she'd deal with them later,  and she asked Ziyal for help.

 

The earnest look on Ziyal's face as she sat down almost broke Kira's resolve. Ziyal was working on a new piece of art and Kira would have given anything right then to forget all about the war and the occupation and the resistance and just chat with her friend about her work. But she didn't have that luxury, she was here for a purpose, a very important one. As much as it hurt her she focussed on the reason she was there. Ziyal looked disappointed to find out this wasn't a social call and Kira wanted her to talk to her father about releasing Rom.

 

"Oh. I thought that maybe you wanted to organise a drawing session," said Ziyal, her voice quiet and full of pain. Kira felt like she'd been punched in the gut.

 

"I'm sorry Ziyal, I'd love to be able to sit and draw with you but I can't, I don't have that luxury anymore."

 

"I know," said Ziyal with a bittersweet smile, "I just miss our sessions, that's all. I miss you and I miss Jake."

 

Kira frowned, puzzled by that revelation. "He's not been to see you since you came back to the station?" Ziyal shook her head sadly, and Kira could feel the silent allegation being levelled at her. "I promise you I had nothing to do with that. Whatever reasons he has for avoiding you, they're his own."

 

Ziyal sighed. "I know you wouldn't tell him to keep away from me, Nerys. It's just been a little lonely at times, and it would be nice to see Jake, maybe bounce some ideas off him like we used to. But I guess he's too busy with whatever you, Rom and the others are up to."

 

The thinly veiled accusation brought Kira back to reality. For a moment she'd let herself believe she was just a normal person catching up with a friend instead of a terrorist working to undermine an interstellar government. She had to remind herself that there was more at stake here than her friendship with the young woman next to her.

 

"Ziyal..." she began, trying to put into words how sorry she was for everything that had gone wrong between them. Ziyal cut her off.

 

"I know that Rom was arrested for sabotage, and that you've been spending a lot of time with him and Quark and Jake. You've got some sort of resistance cell going, haven't you Nerys, working against the Dominion and my father?"

 

Kira's heart lurched into her throat. She didn't want to lie to Ziyal, but she was asking her to get involved, asking her to make the choice she'd never wanted her to have to make, between her friends and the only family she had. She didn't want to lie, didn't want to tell the truth, but Ziyal deserved to know what she was getting involved in.

 

She took a deep breath and forced out a single word, "yes."

 

Ziyal was thoughtful for a long time, wrestling with whatever inner thoughts were swirling around in her mind. Kira let her think, gave her the time she needed to decide whether she was a true Cardassian, or whether she would stand beside her Bajoran friend. In the end she agreed to talk to her father about releasing Rom, confident that she could convince him it was the right thing to do. Kira admired her optimism but she knew better by this point. Dukat would never agree to release Rom unless there was something in it for him, and they had nothing to offer him. They had no other choice though, they had to try.

 

Kira was right of course, and getting Ziyal involved had only served to create a rift between her and her father. Rom would still be executed, the Alpha Quadrant was still doomed and Kira's burden of guilt was that little bit heavier. She wanted to throttle them all; Odo, the Founder, Weyoun, Dukat. She would kill them all if she had the chance, would kill every single Cardassian and Jem'Hadar on the station with the slightest provocation. So when Damar presented her with the perfect opportunity to vent some of her rage, she didn't hesitate. She let loose with every ounce of fury in her body.

 

This was what she excelled at; violence. This had always been her medium, blood and bruises and broken bones. Long before Ziyal had come along and shown her how to harness her creativity in other ways Kira had always had this; the grunts of pain, the dull thud of a connecting punch and the resounding crack of a shattered skull. There was joy in this too, the way her body flowed like water when she painted with gore. There was joy also to be had in the sensation of losing control like this, in the feeling of pressure being released. Kira had been on a knife edge for months now, always one wrong word away from lashing out at the nearest target with her fists and elbows and knees. The part of her that had gotten her through the resistance, that revelled in the horrific things she had had to do simply to survive, that part of her delighted in this loss of control. The more rational part of Kira's brain, the part that knew the consequences of beating Dukat's right hand man to within an inch of his life warned her to back off. As tempting as it might have been to kill him, she didn't. But it was so very satisfying to leave him lying on the floor of the cargo bay, fresh bruises already beginning to bloom on his cheek.

 

She stormed out of the cargo bay and immediately sagged against the wall, adrenaline spent. As her blood began to cool and the red haze dissipated she turned to Ziyal, who was looking at her with astonishment and not an insignificant amount of fear.

 

"He could have you executed for that," said Ziyal her eyes still wide in awe.

 

"I know," said Kira, still trying to get her breath back. "It was worth it though, just to see the sneering son of a pagh-wraith get what he deserves."

 

Ziyal opened her mouth as though she were about to say something, perhaps admonish Kira for her blasé attitude towards her life, but she must have thought better of it. Instead she took a deep breath and grasped Kira's arm. She didn't say a word but the look in her eyes conveyed sincere thanks, as well as a measure of forgiveness for the distance Kira had put between them over the last few weeks. When they parted ways, Kira's heart felt lighter than it had in days.

 

Later, when she was sitting in a holding cell, Kira began to reconsider whether venting her anger on Damar had been worth it after all. Trapped behind a forcefield, powerless to do anything about the minefield that was slowly being deactivated, she would have given anything for some pencils and a piece of paper. Anything to distract herself from Rom's questions and Leeta's whimpering. Anything to stop her focussing on the fact that thousands of Jem'Hadar warships were about to pour through the wormhole, ending any chance the Federation had of winning this war. Just when she thought she would put her fist through the bulkhead if Rom asked about the minefield one more time, she heard a commotion out in the security office. The next thing she knew their guards were dead, the forcefield was down and they had formulated a desperate and practically suicidal plan to stop the Dominion. Just before their little ragtag band of escapees parted ways, Kira managed to take Ziyal to one side.

 

At first she was at a loss for words, but they didn't have much time so Kira simply said "thank you."

 

Ziyal smiled. "You rescued me once," she said with a shrug, letting the end of the sentence go unsaid. It was the least I could do, she seemed be say. After a brief pause she finished by simply saying "you're my friend."

 

Despite the seriousness of the situation, the ticking of the clock and the imminent destruction of the Alpha Quadrant, Kira found herself overwhelmed with joy. She pulled Ziyal into a fierce hug, trying to convey with her body the pride, gratitude and love she felt for this amazing young woman. For one blissful moment the only thing that existed was two friends sharing a heartfelt hug, but all too soon the moment was over and they came crashing back to reality. Kira had a station to sabotage.

 

"Go," she said to Ziyal. "Get somewhere safe and stay there. I'll see you later."

 

She left it unsaid that if she and Rom failed in this there wouldn't be a later. If the minefield came down, if the Alpha Quadrant was overrun, they would all be executed as traitors.

 

Kira was crawling through the bowels of the station trying to get back out when she got Odo's comm. She needed to get to the Infirmary as quickly as possible. Dread settled like a weight in her stomach. A message like that could only be bad news. She wondered who she'd find when she got there. Maybe Jake had decided to ignore her advice and go do something heroic. Captain Sisko would kill her if she'd let his son get injured.

 

She wasn't prepared for the sight of Ziyal lying on that biobed with a hole in her chest. As soon as she saw her friend lying there, far far too still, she felt like all the blood had drained from her body. A buzzing sound started up inside her head and she barely registered Odo offering his condolences and excusing himself.

 

Ziyal was dead.

 

How could that be true? Kira was supposed to protect her friend from things like this? How could she have let this happen? She supposed she should feel guilty for letting her friend down like this, but Kira found she couldn't feel much of anything at all. Not guilt, not anger, not grief. It was as though all the complex emotions she had repressed over the past few months had become too much for her body to deal with, pushed over the edge by the death of her friend, and she had finally shut down. All she had left was this blessed numbness and the buzzing in her ears.

 

She barely registered what was going on outside the Infirmary. She'd heard the klaxon, knew that somehow the Federation had been successful and the Dominion were evacuating, but she couldn't process the details. All that existed was her friend's body and the void where she used to be able to feel. She was still stood there, staring blankly at the biobed when Garak came in. She blurted some platitude, some nonsense about Ziyal having loved him, because she had, in her own way. He had taken Ziyal under his wing just as much as Kira had, acting as her personal tutor in all the parts of Cardassian culture she'd missed out on growing up. Between the two of them they had been her anchor points for both halves of her heritage. Garak paid his respects and left. Julian came in to check on his precious Infirmary. He tried talking to Kira but she didn't know if she said anything intelligible back.

 

She must have stood there for hours before she finally broke. The dams gave way, the floodwaters were loose and there was no containing the torrent of emotion that now poured out of her. An anguished cry burst from her mouth and she fell to her knees as the sobs wracked her body. All of the complex emotions she'd suppressed over the last few weeks now came rushing to the fore. All of the anger and the frustration and the guilt and the grief, for all the people Kira had ever loved and lost. She had grieved for too many people in her life, for family and friends. She cried for her mother and her father, for her brothers and the people she had known in the resistance; for Lupaza and Furel and Lorit Akrem; for Bareil and the future that had died with him; for Tekeny Ghemor and the daughter who looked so much like her; for Opaka, who was not dead but was lost to them nonetheless. But most of all she cried for Ziyal, for all the lives she would never now get to lead. She was such a beautifully flawed person but fundamentally good despite all the things that had been done to her. It wasn't supposed to end like this for a soul like Ziyal, she should have gotten to live to a ripe old age; she should have lived long enough that the traumas of her early years were nothing but a distant memory.

 

When she had cried herself out Kira felt empty, but it was a peaceful emptiness instead of the numbness she'd felt earlier. Licking her dry lips she pulled herself up and over to the biobed to perform the death chant. Once that was complete there was nothing more she could do in the Infirmary. She went to her quarters, ignoring the messages from her Starfleet friends and colleagues, and she dragged out her duranja. She lit the candle and settled in for a long evening of meditation, praying that Ziyal's pagh had safely reached the Celestial Temple, and if not that it had finally found peace.

 

She buried Ziyal on Bajor, beside her father and Tekeny, in what was rapidly becoming Kira's family plot. When she returned to the station she quietly put all of Ziyal's things into storage; all of her beautiful drawings and paintings and the sketchbooks full of nightmares she had shown no one but Kira. She couldn't bring herself to touch her art supplies for a long time after Ziyal's death. She knew that creating something, anything would help her process her grief, but she couldn't even bear to look at her paints, let alone use them. They only served to remind her of her friend, and the life that had been unnecessarily snuffed out. The grief was still too raw and visceral. So instead she coped how she had always coped, by throwing herself into her work. She spent long hours at her station, barely breaking to eat. The work seemed much more pleasant with Sisko and the others back on the station and it was so much easier to lose herself in it.  In the few hours she left herself between work and sleep she could be found in the temple praying, in her quarters meditating or in the holosuite beating up holographic enemies. Anything to keep herself from thinking of her late friend. She pushed her art and the skills Ziyal had taught her to the back of her mind.

 

Kira was meditating one evening, a couple of months after Ziyal's death when her door chime sounded. She answered it to find Jake Sisko stood there, looking a little awkward with a collection of PADDs in his hands. He grinned nervously.

 

"I thought we could... since it's, you know... I know we haven't in a while, since before the Dominion took over, but I thought we could have a session. I've missed them," he said earnestly. For a minute he looked every inch the awkward teenager he really was instead of the young man he was fast becoming. Kira took pity and let him in.

 

"Make yourself at home, Jake. You might want to start without me, I need to get my things out of storage."

 

Jake looked at her with utter astonishment. Kira guessed that to someone who was naturally creative like he was it was incomprehensible that one might put all of one's tools away and just not create. But for someone like Kira, whose artistic side hadn't so much been nurtured as dragged out kicking and screaming, it was all too easy to simply put it aside and carry on without expressing herself through her art.

 

"You put your art supplies away?" he asked, his mind obviously boggled.

 

"Yeah," said Kira, trying to feign nonchalance. "I've not been able to look at them since Ziyal died."

 

"I know what you mean, kinda," he said with a sympathetic look. "All I've been able to write about for months is the Occupation." He sighed and rubbed his face; something was weighing heavily on his mind. Kira put a gentle hand on his arm.

 

"You didn't just come here to write did you?"

 

Jake shook his head. "Ziyal was always talking about art as therapy, and how you two would work through a lot of your issues while you drew. I never asked what issues, but I could guess. I could do with working through a few things myself right now."

 

Kira knew he wasn't the only one who had things they hadn't dealt with yet. She knew full well that the reason she hadn't touched her pencils and paints was because she hadn't felt ready to fully deal with Ziyal's death. Jake turning up on her doorstep had forced the issue, and while she resented him a little for that, she could see that he needed this and if she was perfectly honest with herself, she did too. They had both been close to Ziyal, were both grieving for their friend. Really it was only appropriate that they worked through their feelings of grief together, expressing them on their chosen canvas, through their chosen medium. Ziyal would have been proud.

 

"I'll go get my things," said Kira. "Then you can talk all you want."

 

And talk Jake did. It seemed he was harbouring just as much guilt as Kira did for keeping his distance from Ziyal while the Dominion were on the station. He'd heard many things about Dukat from his father, most of it not good, and he knew how weirdly protective the Cardassian could be of Ziyal. Jake hadn't wanted to give Dukat the wrong idea about his relationship with his daughter, but in doing so he'd managed to almost completely isolate his friend. And he'd never gotten the chance to talk to her about it. After Quark and Ziyal had rescued them from the holding cells they'd ended up hiding in the maintenance ducts, keeping as quiet as possible to avoid detection. They hadn't had much chance to talk, and then she was gone.

 

Kira's heart clenched at that. It had occurred to her many times since that fateful day that if any of them had done one thing slightly different then Ziyal might still be alive. If she'd gone with Kira and Rom, or if she'd just stayed hidden like she was supposed to.

 

"What happened Jake? The last thing I knew you were all heading off to hide somewhere and then suddenly Ziyal was gone. What happened in between?"

 

"I couldn't get her to stay," said Jake, his anguish evident in his voice. "For a long time everything was real quiet and then the sirens went off. We heard the evacuation order and I remember feeling a huge amount of relief; Dad was coming and the Federation had won. But Ziyal got all fidgety and when I asked her what was wrong she said she wanted to go find her father. I tried to talk her out of it but I couldn't keep her there. I should have gone after her, made sure she was safe."

 

"You know that you probably would have ended up dead as well if you'd gone after her."

 

"Yeah, but..."

 

Kira laid a hand on his arm to silence him. "No buts Jake. You're alive, try to be grateful for that."

 

Silence fell between them for a moment before Jake spoke again.

 

"Do we know who did it? Who killed her?" He asked, his voice full of bitterness and self recrimination and anger towards Ziyal's killer.

 

"We don't know for sure. All we have to go on are Dukat's inane ramblings, which should be treated with extreme caution."

 

"Who does Dukat say killed Ziyal?"

 

"Damar."

 

Jake swore. "I'll kill him," he said with an uncharacteristic snarl.

 

"No you won't." Jake tried to protest, but Kira cut him off. "No. You. Won't," she said, making it absolutely clear that if anyone was going to avenge Ziyal's death, it was going to be her.

 

Jake grumbled a bit but turned his attention to his PADD, trying to write. Kira did likewise with her sketchbook but found it difficult to get anything down on the paper. They ended up spending most of the evening talking about Ziyal and reminiscing about the sessions they'd had with the three of them. Kira at least felt lighter after that, and the urge to hide all her art supplies had gone. She even managed to do a few sketches over the next few days. She wasn't back to full artistic capacity, but her talk with Jake had helped her break through whatever mental block she'd had.

 

The next time Jake showed up at her door they both managed to have a very productive evening. He even managed to come up with a silly challenge for Kira, just like he used to do for Ziyal, and she not only accepted but threw some challenges back at him. Something still wasn't quite right for Kira though. She was back to drawing and painting on a regular basis but nothing was coming out quite right, the picture would be there in her head, but something would go wrong somewhere between her brain and the canvas. It was like being back where she started, before Ziyal had patiently moulded her into something resembling an artist. At first Kira thought she was just out of practice and she went back to the exercises Ziyal had given her at the beginning. She did them again and again and again until she was sick of them. They didn't help, there was still something interfering with her ability to create. It wasn't until Jake came over one day, excited to show her a particular piece of writing that he'd done that she realised what was wrong.

 

The piece Jake was so excited about was a tribute to Ziyal, almost a eulogy. It was apparently the longest piece he had written since she'd died and he was very proud of it. Kira realised that although she'd worked through a lot of her feelings about her friend's passing, she hadn't paid tribute to her in the medium Ziyal had taught her. This had obviously been bothering her on a subconscious level, niggling at her pagh and preventing her from expressing any of her creativity. All of a sudden, Kira knew what she was going to do.

 

She was going to paint a portrait of Ziyal.

 

She started off small, sketching numerous pictures of her late friend. She tried different poses, different techniques, different media. The more preparatory sketches she did for her portrait, the more she wanted to sketch other things. It seemed like the blockage had been removed.

 

The only person she told about this little project was Jake, and he approved wholeheartedly. He was happy to offer criticism and advice and suggest ideas for the portrait. Together, they hammered out a final concept for the painting.  By the time Kira started laying down the final practice sketch, she had well and truly recovered from her artists block. When she showed Jake the final mock up, he commented that it looked like a stained glass window. When she told him she didn't know what that was, he pulled up a batch of pictures on her computer.

 

"They used to make church windows like this on Earth," he explained. "It was real popular for centuries. The windows would depict scenes from the Bible and stuff. Saints and other holy figures would have golden halos around their heads, a lot like you've got going on here," he said, gesturing to Kira's drawing. "The halo would indicate their saintliness, their goodness, and set them apart from the others."

 

Kira liked the idea of the halo; it fit in with how she'd always seen Ziyal, as someone who was above all else a good person, a light shining in the darkness. She'd certainly illuminated Kira's life, changed it for the better. She'd taken this one thing that Kira fundamentally could not do, this shortcoming that had caused her so much pain and been the source of so much strife with her father. Ziyal had taken that thing and gently coached Kira through her frustration and shown her that she could in fact do this. She wished her father were still alive so that he could see the artist Ziyal had made of her. No longer was she a failure, a disgrace to her family, no longer did she bring shame to her d'jarra. Now Kira was a true Ih'Valla, a credit to her caste. And it was all because of Ziyal and her patience and her goodness and her steadfast belief in Kira's ability. She couldn't think of a more fitting way to express that in her portrait of Ziyal than with the halo.

 

She took her time with the final painting, working on it over the course of many days. She spent almost all of her free time in her quarters, lovingly rendering her late friends features in pencil and ink and paint. Kira took her time so that she could better capture Ziyal's spirit in this painting. When at last it was done she stepped back to admire her handiwork. It looked even better than she'd hoped it would. This painting stood not only as a memorial to Ziyal, a testament to her life, but also as a clear indication of her skills as a teacher. Kira would never have been able to produce such a thing were it not for her friendship.

 

The painting complete, Kira's heart finally felt at peace, her grief laid to rest despite the fact she knew she would never forgive Damar for taking her friend's life. She knew she would never forget Ziyal, and as long as she lived she would think of her friend every time she picked up her pencils or paintbrush.

 

Before the paint was even dry, her door chime went. She shouted for her visitor to let themselves in, assuming it would be Jake come to see the finished picture. Kira headed to the bathroom to wash up and it was only when she returned to the living area she discovered her visitor wasn't young Mr Sisko, but Dax.

 

Jadzia was stood looking at the portrait of Ziyal with something like awe on her face.

 

"Did you do this?" asked Dax, obviously impressed. Kira nodded. "I knew you'd taken up drawing but I had no idea you'd gotten so good."

 

"It's all thanks to Ziyal. She was a very good, and very patient teacher." Dax just nodded and continued looking at the painting as though Nerys wasn't there. After a few moments Kira cleared her throat. "Can I help you with something Dax?"

 

"Oh yeah. I came to see if you were finished being a hermit and wanted to do something in the holosuite. Sorry, I guess I just got a little distracted."

 

"I can see that," said Kira, amused. "Did you still want to go to the holosuite?"

 

Dax shook her head. "I'd rather you talk to me about Ziyal. I never really took the time to get to know her."

 

So talk Kira did. She told Dax everything, from rescuing her from the Breen prison camp, to her coming to live on the station, to what happened the day she died. She talked about the art lessons Ziyal had given her and how that had brought them closer together; how art had become a means of dealing with and working through trauma. Kira talked about her friendship with Jake and how she wouldn't have that it it weren't for Ziyal. Everything she could think of she told Dax and when she'd finished Jadzia gave her a sad little smile.

 

"Sounds like Ziyal was a wonderful person," said Dax.

 

"She was," Kira agreed. "She was the closest I've ever had to a sister and I loved her like she was family. Ziyal was beautiful and wonderful and all these things but she was also fundamentally flawed. If she hadn't been so willing to give her father so many second chances, if she hadn't loved him so damned much she might still be alive."

 

Dax took her hand. "It does you absolutely no good to think about what ifs. Trust me, after eight lifetimes I know; it'll only eat away at you."

 

"I know," said Kira simply, and Dax left it at that. The two women sat in companionable silence for a while, but Dax's eyes kept drifting back to the painting.

 

"I’m kind of jealous you know," said Dax, almost longingly.

 

"You're not artistic?" asked Kira in a tone of voice that suggested she had a hard time believing there was anything Dax couldn't do.

 

"No," she said. "None of the Dax hosts have ever really been artistic. I really can't draw at all."

 

Kira smiled. All of a sudden she knew the true gift that Ziyal had given her and the best way to keep her memory alive; she would pass on the skills she had learned from her late friend.

 

"Here," said Kira, reaching for a sheet of paper. "I can teach you."

  



End file.
